When You’re Not Sure What Transformation is Supposed to Look Like {I am a Spiritual Misfit series}

I’ve known Charity Singleton Craig awhile now and have come to both love her and respect her work on her own blog and as an editor for The High Calling. Just this past fall I was absolutely delighted to meet Charity at Laity Lodge in Texas, and let me tell you, she is even more genuine and warm in person. Today Charity candidly writes about what it feels like to discover that her faith “isn’t what it seemed, and neither is Jesus.”

In some ways, faith came easy to me because I always wanted so desperately to believe in something, to belong.

The sacraments of my early faith journey included grape Koolaid and vanilla wafers, popsicle sticks formed into God’s eyes, and a painful game of Red Rover in the church parking lot. In other words, I first came to faith as an outsider. My family didn’t attend church when I was young, and because my parents worked, I was a frequent attender of Vacation Bible School, AWANA, and other children’s programs at the churches in our area.

My earliest faith memory is walking down the aisle of the Baptist church near our home during an afternoon VBS program. For some reason, my parents weren’t there, only my brother, though I couldn’t have been more than 5 years old. My trip through the pews had very little to do with Jesus; I wanted to pet the caged bird on stage.

A few years later in junior high, one of the first boys I liked apparently knew Jesus. While we were figuring out the details of what it meant to “go together,” he asked me what church I attended. I didn’t understand the question. I did, however, ask my mom shortly after that if we could start attending a church. When Easter rolled around, my mom, brother, and I found ourselves back at the same little country church where I had petted the bird and discovered the upper room. Their new building was now on the other side of the street, but they still had an aisle. And after a few weeks, I marched right down it again. This time, there were no birds waiting for me. Just the preacher, and Jesus.

From that moment on, I was in. I belonged.

::

In some ways, it feels disingenuous to say that I am a spiritual misfit. Although I didn’t meet Jesus until age 13, I have had years and years to really get to know Him and work out what it means to be born again. If you looked up “evangelical Christian” in the dictionary, it’s possible you would find a picture of me.

I attended church youth group in high school; I started a prayer group in my school’s library; I was president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I was even in a traveling choir known as the “Christian Edition” and regularly gave inspirational testimonies before singing CCM songs to prerecorded accompaniment half an octave above my range. And then I went to a Christian university.

Over the years, I’ve added to my spiritual resume; I served on staff at a church, worked at a Bible college, traveled to foreign countries on short-term missions trips, and for years, have been a member of a giant mega-church that gives millions of dollars each year to preach the gospel to the whole world.

Just like I wanted so long ago as a child, I appear to be a spiritual insider, on the fast-track to upper-level discipleship. I am the opposite of a spiritual misfit, it seems.

And yet, there’s still this nagging feeling that I’m missing something, that I’m not really living the spiritual life I was handed when I took the walk down the aisle to “Just As I Am.” Part of it has to do with my changing sense of how I relate to people in the church; I’m still transitioning from over-involved single woman to barely-holding-my-own, married-with-children career woman. How do I love Jesus if I am not in a small group, teaching a Bible study, and volunteering at a missions conference?

A bigger part of my uneasiness lies squarely in the “seen too much” camp, however. Before cancer, before years of loneliness, before the early death of friends and family, before the war on terror, even, things used to be so black and white for me. My biggest struggles had to do with overscheduling my social calendar. I took for granted that God’s love for me meant he had important work for me to do for him. Big things. And hope looked a lot like optimism. Everything would work out the way we expected it to for people like me, the ones who loved Jesus.

::

Some people spend their whole lives looking for the kind of faith life I’ve had, and some people spend their whole lives trying to escape it. I imagine I’ll spend the rest of my life discovering that my faith isn’t what it seemed, and neither is Jesus.

I used to think that faith meant having everything figured out, and that a life of faith looked pretty much like my life. Now, if you look at my life, you’ll see as much doubt as faith. You’ll also see a step-mom struggling to answer questions about why we go to church. You’ll see a cancer survivor that nearly shrivels with fear before every check up. You’ll see a wife who finds the word submission confusing at best, and often hard to swallow.

But hopefully, you will also see Jesus in me, transforming me into his image, even if I’m not always certain what that should look like.

Charity Singleton Craig is a writer, bringing words to life through essays, stories, blog posts, and books. She has been published at various venues, including The Curator, where she is a staff writer. She also is a content editor at The High Callingand a contributing writer at TweetSpeak Poetry. She lives with her husband and three step-sons in rural Indiana. You can find her online at charitysingletoncraig.com, on Twitter @charityscraig, and on Facebook.

Friends, if you’ve pre-ordered a copy of Spiritual Misfit, be sure to fill out the quick and easy form here to receive a free, personalized and signed bookplate. It’s like getting a signed book without waiting in line for me to sign it!

Reader Interactions

Comments

“Some people spend their whole lives looking for the kind of faith life I’ve had, and some people spend their whole lives trying to escape it.”–That, my dear, is why I read you. For sentences like that.

Beautiful post, Charity! “I used to think that faith meant having everything figured out.” Me too! As time passed, I have come to realize the most beautiful thing about faith is that I will never have it all figured out. Not on this side of eternity anyway. And I am finally good with that. I am just willing now to be on this journey of learning about faith, discovering what it truly encompasses at every stage of my life. Faith in Him makes life an exciting process. Grateful to have met you through the launch team.
PS – “Faith” is my OneWord365 this year 🙂

Joanne – While having a faith that doubts feels shaky sometime, it’s also very liberating, isn’t it? I think you are on to something when you mentioned stages of life. I think I needed a steady faith in my 20s because I wouldn’t have been mature enough to handle the doubts. Now, when life has gotten much more complex, have a black and white approach would be unloving for me. I think the Lord knew exactly what direction my faith journey needed to take – as if there was ever any doubt about that!

I have a story similar to yours: finding my identity in church activities only to discover that, as an adult, I have more questions than answers. But it’s hard to wrestle with doubt in a genuine way when others look up to you as a spiritual leader. Thank you for your raw honesty, Charity. It’s a pleasure to be spiritual misfits together in God’s Kingdom, knowing He’s big enough to handle our questions and loving enough to embrace us even while we’re questioning.

It’s a pleasure indeed, Asheritah! Having doubts as a spiritual leader is scary to those we lead, no doubt. And it’s scary to us, too. But right after that you mentioned raw honesty, and I think for many leaders, that kind of honesty would give those they lead permission to face their own doubts. I definitely don’t have it all together, but yes, I’m trusting more and more in the one who does. And I’m trusting him even when he doesn’t reveal those answers. So glad to sojourn with you!

I love that we all have our own journies to God. Faith is flux. Sometimes I find myself all gung-ho and totally immersed; and, other times I feel its ebb and flow like the tides. I like how you acknowledge that having faith does not mean we have it all together ( we are humans after all ) .

Kristin – Thanks for your comment. Ebb and flow is a good picture of faith and doubt, because sometimes, even now, I feel so sure about things, so convinced of the truth, that doubt feels far, far away. And I know there were days when I was younger when my faith was even more shaky than it is now. This is definitely now a straight-shot journey. More like the wandering of the Israelites when they left Egypt. The promised land was SO close at times, and at other times, so very, very far away.

Tabitha – Wow! Amazing how God works among us to touch each other. I’d love to know what question you asked God and how this post answered it. And I’m so thankful for freedom. I think freedom to doubt is a wonderful gift Jesus believers can give each other.

Kris – And I want to hear more of your story, too. I’m so glad that our paths have crossed in the past few weeks. It’s been wonderful getting to know you a bit. And I think meeting in Texas would be a wonderful gift. I’ll be at Laity Lodge November 20-23 for The High Calling retreat, Lord willing.

Diana – Thank you. And the good news that I didn’t fit into this piece is that I have a husband who is more progressive about submission than I am. It’s amazing that I would actually struggle under that. But I have been taught one thing about marriage and femininity and womanhood for so long that it’s been a challenge to sort through it all with him and with the Lord. Thanks for your encouragement.

Exciting to meet you here today, Charity. Good words! Your journey of faith sounds quite similar to my own–super-involved in church activity, only to arrive at a place of questioning and occasional doubt. I’m still in the process of working some things out. Whittling it all down to the most important of all–“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself.” That seems to be enough of a challenge for me right there, right now. Walking the talk. God help me!

Jillie – How wise you are to find the core truth of the gospel and rest there in the midst of doubting. I think so much of my own doubt comes by majoring on the minor things of scripture – minor in comparison, you know. I am glad to meet you and so thankful that you shared this encouraging comment.

Wow – this is so so good. We’ve similar lives. I can’t wait to visit your blog and get to know you more.

“I used to think that faith meant having everything figured out, and that a life of faith looked pretty much like my life. Now, if you look at my life, you’ll see as much doubt as faith.” – I feel the weight of that too. Thanks for sharing for lovely story.

Trackbacks

[…] my own spiritual misfit story. I recently was a guest blogger at Michelle’s place, telling my own story of coming to realize that I am His BELOVED misfit. Follow the link to read more about caged birds, spiritual resumes, and the doubts I live with in […]

[…] Tuesday, I wrote a little bit about the book and linked to a post I wrote at Michelle’s place about my own faith story as a misfit. Today, Michelle is stopping by for an interview so we can all learn a little more about her, […]

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Living out faith in the everyday is no joke. If you’re anything like me, some days you feel full of confidence and hope, eager to proclaim God’s goodness and love to the world. Other days…not so much.

Let me say straight up: I wrestle with my faith. Most days I feel a little bit like Jacob, wrangling his blessing out of God. And most days I’m okay with that. I believe God made me a questioner and a wrestler for a reason, and I believe one of those reasons is so that I can connect more authentically with others.